Ga. school shooter’s mom was ‘fueling’ obsession with killers, official says
WINDER — Colt Gray’s mother participated in and encouraged his obsession with mass killers after he killed four people at Apalachee High School, according to recorded phone calls between the two and testimony from the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, attorneys presented in court Tuesday.
Marcee Gray acted as a liaison for Colt Gray to get messages and photos posted to the online true crime community after his arrest, according to recordings of calls from his detention center that prosecutors played during the 16-year-old’s sentencing hearing, which continued into the third day.
The two discussed what others were sharing online about him, including photos Marcee Gray took of her son via video calls during his detention and which she shared with his friends within the true crime community.
“I’m being compared with the big dogs,” Colt said in the phone call with his mother on Nov. 26, 2024, more than two months after the Barrow County shooting.
The teen, who was 14 at the time of the attack, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 charges. Four people — two students and two teachers — were killed and several more injured in the shooting. Victims and family members gave impact statements last week.
Colt Gray returned to the Barrow County courtroom this week as Judge Nicholas Primm decides whether his life sentence should include the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors contend gaining notoriety and fame in the online true crime community, in which Gray was immersed for years, was the teen’s primary motive in the shooting. The defense has said he came from a broken home rife with abuse and neglect and did not receive proper care, both physically and mentally, from his parents, and struggled with mental illness.
Colin Gray, Colt’s father, was separately convicted of second-degree murder and other charges and is scheduled to be sentenced in Barrow County later this week. He gave his son the gun used in the shooting, prosecutors said.
Testimony provided in court showed Marcee and Colt Gray talked extensively in phone calls during his detention period from October 2024 to May 2025, after which she was ordered to stop all contact with him.
She read aloud to him comments and posts from people online, praising him and his appearance and describing collages of mass shooters that included him, according to clips played in court.
“It’s got pictures of all the main school shooters, and you’re in there too,” she said in one call recording, describing an online post.
“I’ll get out more pictures, whatever pictures you want me to send out,” she said in another clip played in court.
Marcee Gray has not been charged in connection with the school attack.
DFCS director Candice Broce, called to the stand by the defense, said Colt Gray began to improve after he was placed in the foster care system’s legal custody in October 2025, and Marcee was ordered by a court to halt all contact with him.
“His mother was fueling this ongoing obsession with school shooters,” Broce said, referencing her discussions with detention staff who also evaluated Colt Gray.
The no-contact order and the start of medication “together had changed him into, essentially, a different child,” she said.
Broce also laid out years of the family’s involvement with DFCS, which included investigations into numerous abuse and neglect allegations that were substantiated. Colt Gray and his siblings are all in the foster care system’s legal custody, and Colt has also been detained by law enforcement since the shooting took place.
“We looked into allegations of domestic violence, substance abuse issues, that the children had been locked out of the home, physical abuse targeted at Colt,” Broce said on the stand.
The family did not comply with the division’s referrals to seek additional therapeutic services, and Broce said she could not find any medical or mental health treatment records for Colt prior to the shooting.
The hearing will continue Tuesday afternoon with more witness testimony.